For uses in rubber tires, particularly tire treads, rubber is often compounded to enhance various properties. For example, for a tire tread, a balance between rolling resistance, which may affect fuel economy of the vehicle with which the tire is associated, and skid resistance and tire tread wear is desired. Usually, if one of such three properties of the tire tread is emphasized, enhanced or otherwise modified, then one or more of the other two properties is effected. It is often a tire compounder's desire to enhance one of the three properties without unduly sacrificing one or more of the other two properties.
While it is usually time consuming and relatively expensive to conduct extensive tire tests for the purpose of evaluating the results of a rubber compounding experiment for a tire component such as its tread, often preliminary predictive tests are made on the rubber compound itself for the material properties which are often associated with what can be expected from an extensive tire test relating to the aforesaid three tire properties.
For example, the rebound value of a compounded rubber sample is often predictive of the rolling resistance of a tire with a tread thereof. A relatively higher rebound value of a rubber compound determined according to ASTM No. D1054 would typically indicate a lower tire rolling resistance for a tire with a tread thereof as compared with a similar rubber compound with a relatively lower rebound value. A rubber compound having a relatively lower rebound value would be similarly predictive of a tire having a tread thereof with a higher and often less desirable rolling resistance.